SNAKE

Past me, glossy faces
swim

and smile;

but still—

some faint anguish pervades,

tugging slightly

on the grim light
that suffuses each new crossing,

and pulling me a little

in its wake.

What is a river after all, though?—
but a recurring
problem that needs solving.

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT

I wondered as I walked, if the image
of an ancient
snowy mountain—

which rose, immovable as all time's ages
and so readily
before my mind—

which was certainly never
wrought by any man's labors,
or even
by the most terrific
tricks of his thoughts—

and which, in consequence of its
inexplicable omnipresence,
came to be explained, disarmingly
as simply—deific;

if that abstraction
could not?—purely through the alchemy
of being rubbed
lightly past the lips and hands of a few
or more

unwitting generations—
come to be transformed,
irrevocably ever after, into stone-
cold fact?

POP

Beliefs are bubbles;
mysterious dirigible creatures
born of wind
from magic wands and sun-
streaked with resplendent color—

which, however,
were built not
to suffer

the mildest
of altitudes
or slightest pressure—

and which bequeath
at their deaths—and this much only
if the witness
is feeling writerly—

felicitous claps, as they
pass, of cheap
sound to his memory.

QUALIFIERS

Inconspicuous,

but everywhere 

along

the chatty river,

tepid nibblers swarm 

and mingle—

little leeches, sucking 

at the rushing 

blood of words.

GO TO SLEEP NOW

Congratulations, you're a

Georgia peach—

a fleshy accumulation of curious blushes, sunkissed

and swelling proud

to nourish and ensconce 

the secret, hardy stone—which is precious,

indubitable you.

But seriously, you're a common onion—
watery yellow 

layers, under 

layers, under layers—translucent, sour,

'til there's—
nothing there.

But actually, the most distasteful thing
is probably—how there's really

only one of you.

But really, the most delicious part—

is you're the 

only one.

SUPERMARKET SWEEP

Dizzy with light
from a frontage of windows,
I can feel my lips passing

wisps of pleasant fluff

back-and-forth

with a mild mannered 

hostess, behind this sterile

stainless steel conveyor, which

certainly wasn't built 

to accommodate the hugeness
of this encounter, but nevertheless

over which
are nervously carried—both of our most
urgent motivations this morning:

hers—to earn,

mine—to feel sated 

by an elusive feeling
that I've done that already.

But even as our shared air
continues, warm and used-up now, to rise
in cute pools which tingle my senses,

I am nearly drown
by the thundering chorus
of various would-be contestants
inside me, chiding—

Can it be true? Is this all
there is? And then—somehow,
alone again, white paper in-hand

finally, flush with a winner's
grin, pantomiming
to muzak—Isn't this plenty? More 

than enough?

OLD PISSER

Often I'll watch him stand corrected,

walk redirected,
inspect collections already-

finished 

and polished to perfection;

seeking refuge 

in such vagueness—huge 

and warm
and full 

with the pleasantness
of shiny yellow light.

And then—

when he's feeling

quite dizzy

and sunblind

and free—he'll whip it out 

feebly

and write—

hashtag-

beat poetry,

hashtag-doin' it 

in my sleep.